‘It’s OK to use the word suicide.’ Texas school assemblies offer straight talk, and hope

FREEPORT — Austin Lanier struggled to stay sober for more than an hour. As a 17-year-old star soccer player whose grandmother was dying, he’d drink and smoke with his friends, dreaming his popularity would make people love him in a way he didn’t love himself.

No one knew what he was dealing with, he said.

"I had to cover every single mirror in my house with towels," he said as he paced the gym floor before some 500 silent seventh- and eighth-graders at Freeport Intermediate School in Brazoria County. "By the time I was a senior, I almost made a decision to take my own life."

Now a 26-year-old Houston hip-hop artist and motivational speaker, Lanier is part of a group that has targeted this coastal county — which has some of the highest suicide rates in Texas — with assemblies this fall to encourage teens struggling with depression or thoughts of suicide to ask for help. Speakers range from musicians to mayors to a 15-year-old survivor who share stories of how their despair led to hope.

As teen suicide rates climb nationally, one in eight young people in Texas admitted in 2017 to trying to end their lives in the previous year, compared to one in 13 nationally, according to the most recent survey from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Experts caution against such large-scale public conversations about suicide, depression and mental health, saying every Texas high school classroom is likely to have at least one student at risk for suicide, and it’s difficult to identify those students in large assemblies.

“In small groups you can monitor student responses and correct myths and misinformation and discreetly have follow-up discussions with youth who seem concerned or need assistance. And youth are more likely to be open with their concerns in small groups,” said Merily Keller, founder and retired co-coordinator of the Texas Suicide Prevention Council who lost her youngest son to suicide in 2000 when he was a senior in high school.

But the STOP group says its assemblies — each attended by school staff and more than a dozen volunteers scanning the crowd to identify students in distress — are key to a multi-pronged prevention strategy that includes follow-up teacher training and counseling services. Eight rallies have been hosted by schools in Brazoria County so far this year, with plans for more.

The goal is to ensure that students who feel depressed or suicidal realize they are not alone and have someone they can talk to when they’re struggling, said Brenda George, 57, a nurse who founded STOP.

“Everywhere we go, there are kids that are actually kind of blossoming out of this depression and getting the help they need and realizing they have hope. And they’re coming back saying let me reach out to other kids as part of my healing,” she said.

Brenda George is a founder of S.T.O.P (Stop. Talk. Overcome. Pain), a program bringing youth events about suicide prevention and anti-bullying awareness to schools in Texas.

Photo: Pu Ying Huang, Contributor / Houston Chronicle

‘It’s OK to use the word suicide’

Suicide kills more Americans than car crashes. It’s the second-leading cause of death for people 10 to 34 years old, behind unintentional injuries. Suicide is the No. 2 most common cause of death for teenage girls across the globe.

The self-reported attempts of suicide among young people have risen since 2009, most sharply among girls. More than 22 percent of girls surveyed in 2017 reported they considered killing themselves, compared to 12 percent of boys, according to an annual survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. More girls planned and attempted suicide than boys. But boys are more likely to die by suicide.

In 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention asked high school students whether they had considered suicide in the previous 12 months, and how far they had gone.

Photo: Houston Chronicle

Gay, lesbian and bisexual students, or those questioning their sexuality, are at even greater risk. Nearly half — 47.7 percent — of young people who identify themselves as gay, lesbian or bisexual have considered attempting suicide in the previous year, according to the CDC. Nearly 1 in 3 students who are unsure of their sexuality also considered suicide.

Brazoria County is ranked as having the third-highest suicide rate in the state, although that classification is likely skewed due to sparse data from rural counties. The sheriff's office has fielded more than 400 calls this year about someone talking about suicide or attempting to kill themselves.

One call last month was about an eight-year-old who said she wanted to end her life, said Sgt. Shane Michael Vandergrifft, who supervises the sheriff’s office mental health deputies and serves on the STOP governing board.

“When I was her age, I was wondering what the ThunderCats were doing, what He-Man was going to do next. This poor girl wanted to kill herself," he said.

In the gym at Freeport Intermediate School, and another like it earlier on a recent Friday, speakers told the students about their personal struggles.

Vandergrifft, one of more than two dozen adults and staff members who watched carefully for students in distress from the perimeter of the gym, said in an interview that he understands the struggles well.

He lifted his sleeve to show where he once would cut himself — a thick scar sits high on his bicep, camouflaged now by a tribal tattoo. If he tells his story, he said, maybe it will encourage other people to come forward and seek help with their own.

Vandergrifft tracks local suicide data himself in hopes it will help him identify trends and work on the problem, instead of waiting for state or national data that often lags two years. Twenty-five people in Brazoria County have died by suicide so far this year, his data shows.

"It’s OK to use the word suicide,” he said. “It’s OK to ask a child that is 10 years old, eight years old, are you thinking about killing yourself? Because the more we try to hide this, the more of our kids we’re going to bury.”

‘Never, ever give up’

Lake Jackson Mayor Bob Sipple had to bury his son. Standing inside a gym at an assembly in nearby Lake Jackson Intermediate School, he told junior high students his son killed himself 15 years ago, at the age of 41.

Suicides not only end a person’s life, but send ripple effects throughout the community. Research shows that each suicide impacts 135 people who knew the deceased, leaving a large circle of effected family, friends and people in the community who may be in need of counseling or other support.

Hannah Stallworth poses for a portrait at Freeport Intermediate on Oct. 25, 2019. Stallworth, after overcoming her own struggles with mental health, began speaking to students about personal experience with the S.T.O.P program in Brazoria County.

Photo: Pu Ying Huang, Contributor / Houston Chronicle

Hannah Stallworth, 15, also spoke at Lake Jackson Intermediate school. She’s a survivor. She likes telling people about how she found the will to live. She was depressed and twice attempted suicide, she says. She was wanting to try a third time when she called the National Suicide Hotline. Wearing a black shirt and ripped black jeans, she reads to students an essay she wrote.

“We live in a far from perfect world and it’s OK to not feel OK sometimes,” she said. “You’re going to be something amazing one day, even if people say that you won’t.”

While researchers cannot point to a clear cause for the increase in youth suicides, they note that social media and cyberbullying have changed the dynamics for what it’s like to be a kid. Others have pointed to a lack of community and changing social structures. Some point to less sleep.

Regardless of the reason, it was the increase of people under 18 years old trying to take their own lives in Brazoria County in 2018 that weighed on George, who lives in Freeport. In prayer, the acronym STOP came to her — which later became an acronym for Stop, Talk and Overcome Pain.

Then three children in the county attempted suicide in one week. She took it as a sign from God that she needed to do something to stop the preventable deaths of young people around her.

More Information

HOTLINE: If you’re feeling suicidal, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255, the Trevor Project at 1-866-488-7386 or the Trans Lifeline at 1-877-565-8860. Or text HOME to 741741. If you don’t want to use the phone, consider using the Lifeline Chat at www.crisischat.org.

If you think someone is contemplating suicide:

The Texas Department of Health and Human Services suggests acting right away.

1) Ask about thoughts or plans for suicide. Example questions: “Are you having thoughts about suicide?” “Are you thinking about killing yourself?”

2) Listen and be nonjudgemental: Let them know you care about them.

3) Believe what they say: Take words and actions seriously.

4) Offer hope: Help them think of reasons to live or ways to keep safe.

5) Get help. Stay with them until help is available.

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Now she's trying to grow an anti-suicide campaign that travels to schools, churches and community groups to let people know there's somewhere to turn when they're feeling depressed, have trauma in their lives or feel like it's no longer worth living.

Her group collaborates with at least 38 mental health agencies, community groups, law enforcement, schools, mayors offices and congressmen to connect kids in crisis to services. In the weeks after the assemblies, groups like the National Alliance on Mental Illness’ Gulf Coast chapter will work in schools with students and teachers to learn more about identifying warning signs and how to get help.

The goal is to ensure each child realizes there is someone he or she can talk to, whether at school or alone with their thoughts at 3 o’clock in the morning, George said, such texting HOME to 741741, which appears on bracelets handed out before each assembly.

“That little 10-cent bracelet is the most powerful thing we have,” she said.

At one assembly, counselors noticed a boy in the bleachers crying. They discreetly escorted him out of the gym where he met with a counselor.

“What we saw today was a little boy who needed to talk, who needed somebody. To see that, to see him come down, my heart dropped,” George said. “But I realize that if we had not been there today, what would his tomorrow look like? What would have happened next week? How far would he have gone? Now the counselors are aware.”

In the week after the assembly in Freeport, 15 students visited the school’s counselor's office to talk about stress, home, internal conflict and emotional concerns, said Ian White, the school’s principal. Another two students came with suicide concerns.

Andrea Zelinski is a state bureau reporter focusing on education, politics, social issues and the courts. She previously covered the Tennessee legislature and local education for the Nashville Scene where she was news editor. She also wrote for the Nashville Post, the now defunct Nashville City Paper and TNReport news service, covered the Illinois statehouse and reported for the Associated Press and Small Newspaper Group. A Chicago-area native, she has a master’s degree in Public Affairs Reporting from the University of Illinois at Springfield and earned her undergraduate degree at Northeastern Illinois University.